With 4,000 passengers aboard, the Costa Concordia cruise liner ran aground off the coast of Italy. Thus far 21 people are missing and 11 are dead. This was a tragic accident, but perhaps it is evolving into something more than an isolated event of human error and physics -- it may also be another example of systems failure -- not in physical engineering, but in the complex, more delicate architecture that underpins public trust and confidence.
Social scientists have long been fascinated by trust, but in recent years its short supply has made everyone take notice. Gallup reports a long-running trend of nearly four decades of lost public confidence and trust in nearly all institutions from the branches of government, business, to organized religion. The evolving science of trust suggests that the public's and the media's penchant to generalize from discreet events to entire systems and the often lethargic response of both public and private leadership may be taking a toll on trust.
How tragic events are explained and portrayed affects far more than public interpretations of current events; they can shape how the public perceives an industry, government or an entire system. In addition to the lives lost and twisted steel are the damaged symbols and beliefs that are the foundations of public perception of how safe, well-managed, or trustworthy a system may actually be. Sinking trust affects far more than public opinion and water cooler chat. It is the fundamental glue that determines if companies can engage consumers; governments can enlist public support; if communities can garner the social capital necessary to build quality of life, not just a place to live; and, ultimately if we can trust each other.
Transportation accidents, such as airline crashes, are most often attributed to human error and weather. Black boxes (which are actually orange) give the next best available information in the absence of a surviving crew of 'what happened.' Typically the error is portrayed as tragic but human. After all, mistakes happen to the best of us. The Costa Concordia accident is giving the public good reason to question both the cause of the accident as well as the symbols and rules of safety at sea. As more is known about the Costa Concordia sinking, the captain may not only be at fault for a mistake but for leaving the ship before the passengers or crew were safely evacuated -- thus breaking the tradition or at least long-held popular belief that the 'captain goes down with the ship.' The reason so many stripes and gold adorn a captain's uniform, whether on ships or aircraft, is that the captain alone symbolizes to passengers and to the general public the expertise, control, command and ultimately the safety of the vessel. Instead, the Costa Concordia leaves us with an image of a captain that is more than delinquent in duty and unable to cope in crisis or worse.
Beyond the captain, rescued passengers tell stories of chaos while trying to evacuate the ship. The media and public must ask -- aren't there rules, procedures or drills for the possibility of an accident? Of course there are, but if not practiced or put into action when needed, emergency plans become little more than dusty notebooks that fulfill a corporate or government check list. The public is left to conclude that in practice there are no rules or the rules that do exist are inadequate. Even the chairman and chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines, operator of the Costa Concordia, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying "This tragedy has called into question our company's safety and emergency response procedures and practices."
As blame drifts somewhere between the captain and the company, the news will begin to focus on the context of the cruise industry -- who regulates, who inspects, who enforces -- who is making sure the public is safe? Interviews will be aired, hearings will be held, and government agencies will be scrutinized and criticized. Few of these actions will add clarity or build public confidence. In fact, they are likely to support a latent public fear that it is not just the Costa Concordia but the whole system that is a 'mess.'
The sinking of the Costa Concordia is more than a problem for Carnival Cruises. The cruise industry caters to travelers that have chosen a cruise because of the trust they have in the safety it provides while offering the values of hassle-free fun, experience, and convenience traveling to 'exotic' destinations. Moreover, according to the Centers for Disease Control (link below) about one-third of cruise ship passengers are 55+ -- suggesting that personal safety may be an even greater concern and consideration in selecting the safety of an all-inclusive getaway.
Other industries and all levels of government should note a pattern the Costa Concordia tragedy is following along with a long list of other 'events' that involve lost confidence and trust. Just in recent years consider the impact of individual fraud on faith in the financial system; failed medical devices on public perception of medical safety; Gulf oil spill disaster on off-shore drilling and exploration; contaminated spinach on food safety; or, the chilling effects of Fukushima on the future of nuclear power. There is a growing trend line in the media and public opinion to define what might have been once considered individual error or even individual malevolence into larger failures of an entire class of expertise or authority. Beyond over the risks of over generalizing, public and private organizations must accept that poorly executed rules and practices awaken latent beliefs as well as fears that there are no rules to 'the game.' Lack of instant no excuses response by both corporations and governments can suggest that there may be no 'fail safe' to protect the public and that accidents, failures and fraud are not individual incidents but yet one more example of system failure.
The price of inaccurately assigning the failure of an individual or even a group of individuals to an entire industry, government program or system is long-term loss of public confidence and trust. Likewise, companies and government agencies must protect both public safety and trust by executing, and if appropriate, prosecuting flawlessly in time of crisis. Otherwise what is lost is far more important than market share or votes; the sinking of public trust is integral to our faith in complex social and technical systems that undergird everyday life, our confidence in each other, and ultimately our belief that we can build a better future together.
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Most people thinnk Obama has been a collassal failure. And what's his biggest succes? Most are saying it's ending American involvement in Iraq. Isn't this something he tried to continue? Didn't the Iraqis need to tell him no? So, Pbama's biggest succes was a policy and position that he failed to succeed at implementing?
Doesn't that put this whole situation into proper pespective? Obama has only succeed when he's failed.
So it becomes both necessary and acceptable for many to be two people. To be duplicitous, hypocritical, to operate double standards.
Integrity and trust are based upon a systematic enforcement of moral principles without exception.
But politicians and businessmen are pragmatic. That means abandoning principles and making decisions on a case by case basis. This form of pragmatism is highly praised.
But these pragmatists claim that they are principled! And, by doing so, they destroy language. They destroy concepts.
They are destroying our ability to talk about honesty and integrity, trust and principle.
They steal our power, our wealth our opportunity and in order to do so they steal our capacity to express criticism.
When the ruling class engages in the destruction of conceptual frameworks around which trust is expressed, trust ceases to exist.
The restoration of trust can only come about by doing what has been done to us. The conceptual apparatus of the ruling elites must be destroyed. Their language of lies must be exposed for what it is. And the world they have created must be what?
- reformed?
- regulated?
- overthrown?
1) The creation of a "mass society" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made people dispensable. The complicated institutions that we have created to manage our business (corporations, bureaucracies, militaries, research institutions) treat people as things to be administered, not as people per se.
2) Our current 'scientific' model of human nature is grounded on the concept of self-interest governing everything. Therefore, everybody is assumed to be a maximizer of their own gains, even at the expense of others when the opportunity presents itself. This is not a model that is conducive to trust. It's a model that always prompts us to be on guard against ulterior motives.
3) It's far more efficient these days in our mediated existence for an institution to employ a public relations team to get what it wants, rather than build trust the old-fashioned way. Building trust is expensive and time consuming, since it has to be done on an individual level. Better to pursue cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency, and drown out the malcontents with a media push.
4) Perhaps we have internalized a post-modern mindset where we can trust nothing to be as it claims to be; it can and will be changed without notice to serve the interests of power relations.
Some minorities and well as women were barred from meaningful economic opportunities, as well as other rights, but there was nevertheless a robust middle class that exerted collective power. Beyond the glaring exceptions mentioned above, there was less fragmentation of demographics. Today there are far more choices for the individual, but less sense of shared choices. Moreover commercial marketing and our electronic devices tend to reinforce the ascension of the individual over the collective.
There are lots of differences over the years, good and bad and mostly both, but my impression is that one key change seems to be a declining social consequence for disseminating verifiable lies. Public figures regularly tell larger and more frequent lies, as well as make demagogic appeals to emotion with no loss of face. I’m not saying there were not very serious distortions in the past (McCarthy hearings, Gulf of Tonkin, etc.) but less consequent for those caught lying (Nixon vs. Clinton vs. Bush). Deliberate misinformation seems to be more commonplace.
The "you're on your own" approach has been going on for a long time.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html?ref=sunday
Government corruption came to the surface with Watergate, and generations have watched it get worse.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
Corporate feudalism is increasing - and those corporations are not looking out for our benefits. America is the only advanced country that has adopted Ayn Rands "selfishness is a virtue" with collective narcissism of the rich. America is the only advanced country that refuses to take care of the poor, the hungry and the sick.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/taming-the-deficit/
Trust is earned.
So is distrust.
There is no trust left in employers, corporate America took that away.
There is little loyalty to products, nothing is made in America any more.
Big money and the platinum revolving door took our government and justice away from us.
The banks defrauded and raided our mortgages and homes.
What's left? Who is there to trust?
It is the cynical neo-con way now, everyone at each others throats, and every man for himself...
America is a memory, this country needs a new name and stop disgracing the name of America.
we 70% must vote to keep them far away from the control of our republic.
Honestly means taking pains to describe what one believes to be true accurately (i.e., avoiding issuing deliberate lies). It also mean being “true” to ones word. If I agree to mail a letter (or safely pilot a ship) I will make every reasonable effort to do so.
Empirical “truth” is always an approximation, but our approximations are trustworthy enough to put a man on the moon or assemble a modern microprocessor. Not infallible, but trustworthy. Some scientific determinations are more trustworthy than others, and therefore confidence varies with the nature of the basis for verification.
The number of meters that a loaded ship extends below the surface of sea water can be calculated to a high degree of accuracy. The depth of the sea is also extensively mapped. One may choose to believe otherwise, but if distance A exceeds distance B, there is a predictable result.
The scientific method is our most thorough way of determining empirical accuracy. We teach a lot of isolated facts about science in schools but little about the core issues: How and why science works, how it achieves a reasonable basis for confidence, and why it matters.
There is also the matter of honor.
What we already know from the Concordia incident is that the Captain took unnecessary risks, the The ship did not have (or did not trigger) appropriate compartment closures, the crew was untrained and unable to help in an emergency, and that the crew, particularly the Captain - took a "you're on your own" approach to the emergency.
We see our governments, increasingly, unwilling to hold any companies responsible for their acts. They openly act as if we are "on our own."
In the U.S. banks acted with criminal disregard for risks, the government made the citizens pay for their gambling. No bankers were held responsible for their criminal acts. No changes were made to ensure that it would not happen again. Not even a return to the standard that kept it from happening for decades. Because the "leaders" have been paid by the perpetrators.
In the U.K. and the U.S. Murdoch's minions openly and purposely hacked many people's phones, email, etc. Multiple criminal acts. Those individuals were not held accountable. Because the "leaders" have been paid by the perpetrator.
Trust involves people taking responsibilty. When the institutions openly refuse to take responsibility, because it is profitable for them to hurt others - then we are, truly, "on our own."
The "It can't happen to me" mental state has many re-evaluating. Not sure if that can ever be regained.
I figure that historically the Robber Barons bought the politicians at the rate of 10 cents on the dollar of profits....Now in this new age of Robber Barons they have bought the politicians at less than 1 cent on the dollar of profits....Think about it, the Bush tax cuts for the 400 richest people saved them over 50 BILLION dollars in 10 years and that is only for the riches 400....a 33% decrease in the preferential capital gains rate.....